Blog: Infamy at last

It took a lot of hard work, but I’ve finally realised one of my childhood ambitions. No, I’ve not piloted a jet plane or scaled Mount Snowdon without the aid of a steam train… I’ve not even managed to find an XX-flavoured Rover 800 without rust. Nope, I have had a piece published in AUTOCAR magazine. Now, I imagine to many, this fact could well be accompanied with a “so what?”, but to me, it really does mean a lot.

Allow me to explain: I’ve been reading Autocar magazine since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, and although I used to dislike the crappy paper it was printed on, and how there were pages of classifieds in the front of the magazine before the news pages, it became a weekly staple for me all the same. Back in the 1970s, growing up, as I did, on a Council estate, our local newsagent never stocked such esoteric things as car magazines, and therefore, to get a copy of Autocar meant a long walk into town. It was invariably worth it.

After a three-mile walk into Blackpool town centre, I’d go into WHSmith, buy Autocar (I couldn’t afford Motor as well on my 50p per week pocket money), have a look at CAR and WHAT CAR? and then carry it home again. I would always resist the temptation to read it on the way back. Why? I didn’t want anyone from school spotting me, and thinking I was “different” (even though I obviously was – and probably still am).

…growing up, as I did, on a Council estate, our local newsagent never stocked such esoteric things as car magazines.

Once home, each issue would be pored over for new information – if there was a new car launch that week, all the better. The lead-up to a new car launch was always exciting – the black silhouetted picture promising something the in the previous week’s mag – and this was always a big, big tease. Back in the 1970s and 80s, there was little in the way of humour – the product mattered – and it wasn’t until later that this aspect of motoring journalism became widestream, so I always assumed that in order to make it as a motoring journalist, you had to be a good road tester. As a teenager, then, I used to write my own car magazines, “testing” various new cars, illustrating them with my own drawings. My sketching became more widespread, and before long, I was creating my own “future cars”. In 1984, I designed nice 3-door Montego-based sports estate, followed by a Golf-class Audi hatchback – the absurdity of it!

So I wanted to be a car designer, right? Not a bit of it. I wanted to be a motoring journalist. By my late-teens I was boring anyone that would listen: motoring journalism was where I wanted to be. However, there was a flaw to this ambition: my English teacher thought I was no good, and a career in something more pragmatic was what I should be trying to pursue.

Having had all of my confidence taken out of me, I finished school, went to college, and never again did I entertain the idea of writing.

A reasonably lucrative career in IT followed, and then austin-rover.co.uk…

And as we all know, the website built up a small but enthusiastic audience. Including some of the motoring journalists I so admired as a youngster. I remember the first time, a journalist e-mailed me – it was almost like meeting a hero. It seemed they liked my work. Contact was made. The word spread, and after a little while, I was corresponding… The next step came, when I met the guys at Autocar, and before too much longer I had talked Richard Bremner into taking one of my stories.

The result, you can read in the magazine, but be prepared, it is not about Austin-Rover. Maybe the next one will be. If there is a next one. I hope so. Having seen my name in print once, I quite fancy seeing it there again.

In 1974, Vauxhall designed this superb-looking supermini with an eye on stealing a share of Europe’s fastest-growing sector of the market. Sadly, it wasn’t to be – most probably because it didn’t have the platform to underpin it… […]